Most people utilise magnifying mirrors to make themselves look better. To perfectly blend their foundation line. Remove stray eyebrow hairs. Put in and take out their contact lenses safely.
Certain members of my family (a sister, who I will not identify for risk of shaming – but let’s say her name starts with P and ends with atricia), regularly borrow mine for a less wholesome (and definitely not dermatologist-approved) habit: popping her pimples.
So when I got the chance to review the new Laifen Glowy Vanity Mirror, she was tasked with the responsibility of letting me know if a magnifying mirror that uses tech does a better job than your standard one. On the condition: leave your blackheads alone!
Enter the Glowy Mirror
Laifen has built somewhat of cult following in hair care with its high-speed dryers. And now it’s turning its attention to the bit of the bathroom counter that hasn’t really changed since your nan’s era: the humble magnifying mirror. The Laifen Glowy Vanity Mirror is the brand’s first foray into beauty tech. And it’s basically what happens when a standard 5x mirror goes to finishing school.
Here’s the upgrade rundown:
- High-CRI, full-spectrum lighting with a CRI of Ra97, designed to reproduce colours more accurately and give you a more true-to-life view of your skin and makeup
- Up to 650 lux of bright, even illumination with a shadow-free glow, so you can actually see what you’re doing without harsh patches of light
- Eye-safe lighting with no blue light, making the mirror a little less brutal on the eyes during those early-morning or late-night beauty sessions
- LED lighting with 3 colour modes and 6 brightness levels – so you can toggle between “warm evening glow” and “unforgiving fluorescent office light” depending on how honest you’re feeling
- A smart motion sensor with 24GHz radar that automatically switches the mirror on and off, meaning it’s completely hands-free
- 5500mAh battery with long battery life, plus USB-C charging and the ability to keep using the mirror while it charges
- A 5x magnification mirror included, for the true detail obsessives
- Premium aluminium build with IPX4 water resistance, making it particularly suited to bathroom use
- 243 x 243 x 30.5mm and 1kg, so it sits solidly on a counter without doing that annoying wobble thing cheap mirrors do
- Available in white, with purple reportedly on the way
- RRP $99, sold through Costco Australia
The Foundation Test
First things first: does it actually make you look better while doing your makeup, or is this just a fancy light strapped to a mirror? Standard magnifying mirrors, especially the ones lit only by your bathroom’s questionable overhead downlight, are notorious for lying to you. You blend your foundation to perfection, step into daylight, and discover a demarcation line so crisp it could cut glass.
The Glowy Mirror’s three lighting modes exist specifically to stop this from happening – cycling through warm, cool and natural tones so you can check your base in something closer to actual daylight, rather than trusting the ambient vibe of your bathroom at 7am. For anyone who has ever applied eyseshadow in bad lighting and regretted it by lunchtime, this is the whole point of the product.
The difference here is that Laifen isn’t just throwing LEDs around the edge of a mirror and calling it beauty tech. Its full-spectrum, Ra97 high-CRI lighting is designed to show colours closer to how they look in real life, while the 650-lux illumination creates a bright, even, shadow-free glow. In practical terms, that means you get a much better idea of whether your foundation actually matches your skin, rather than discovering later that your bathroom lighting has been lying to you.
And, because Laifen uses eye-safe lighting with no blue light, you can get ready without feeling like you’re staring into a tiny interrogation lamp – particularly welcome first thing in the morning.
The Sister Test
Now, the real review. I handed the mirror to my sister – who I remind you is a repeat offender when it comes to unauthorised extraction sessions – with one rule: admire it, don’t attack your skin with it.
Her verdict, paraphrased slightly for decency: ” The lighting is great, and it’s satisfying to click through the brightness levels. It’s also heavy enough that it doesn’t slide around, which, if I were hypothetically going to do something I promised not to do, would actually make that easier…”
Given the red inflamed marks on her chin when we next caught up, I can probably safely assume she did not fully comply with the ban. But, she reports that the improved lighting made her more aware of what she was doing, which surely has to be some measure of success…?
Grooming Beyond Makeup
The Laifen Glowy Vanity Mirror is not just a makeup mirror, either. The precision lighting does double duty for:
- Skin care routines, where even illumination actually matters for spotting texture, redness or dry patches instead of guessing
- Grooming for the men in the house, giving proper visibility for shaving lines and detail work instead of squinting into a fogged-up bathroom mirror
- Eyebrow maintenance, contact lens insertion, and all the other original, wholesome uses that got completely overshadowed by my sister’s antics
Pair it with Laifen’s SE High-Speed Hair Dryer and you’ve basically built yourself a proper beauty station without needing a salon-grade vanity setup.
The Verdict
As a tech upgrade over a standard magnifying mirror, the Glowy Vanity Mirror earns its keep. The adjustable lighting solves a genuinely annoying problem (bad bathroom lighting lying to your face), the USB-C charging means it won’t die on you mid-contour, and the build feels considerably more premium than the $99 price tag suggests.
As a pimple-picking enabler for repeat offenders in your household? Also, unfortunately, an upgrade. Buyer beware.
Disclaimer: no blackheads were harmed in the making of this review. Allegedly
